Today at 5 pm, Białystok's Arsenal Gallery will open the exhibition The Journey to the East (Podróż na Wschód), organised as part of the Cultural Programme of the Polish EU Presidency 2011. The exhibition includes works by several dozen artists from the Eastern Partnership countries, including Sergey Shabohin, who was in Krakow during last year's edition of the ArtBoom Festival. The show will remain open until the 30th of September, and will then move to Kiev’s Mysteskyi Arsenal (Ukraine) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK). The Journey to the East is one of the largest international exhibitions mounted as part of the Polish EU Presidency. Along with Sweden, Poland is an originator of the Eastern Partnership project. Artists asked to show their work include nationals of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The artists were asked to use their works to explore the theme of human relations, basing them on positive emotions, as well as the theme of building a civic society.

The project is organised by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Audiovisual Institute in collaboration with Białystok’s Arsenal Gallery.

During the ArtBoom Festival 2010 in Krakow, Sergey Shabohin showed his project Store and attended a meeting, where he presented his previous works and delineated the situation of contemporary art in Belarus.